There are currently three primary types of computer accessible trading systems for securities such as stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. The first is the conventional stock exchange system exemplified by the New York Stock Exchange and New York Mercantile Exchange. On such exchanges, the market is made for each security by a single registered stock dealer, such as a registered stock specialist, who has a seat on the exchange. In addition to face-to-face and telephone communication to the dealers/specialists on the floor, computers are used to send orders to the dealers/specialists on the exchange floor. Information as to the buy and sell prices (bid/offer prices, respectively) are supplied by the dealer/specialist to the exchange and brokers through the dealer/specialist's trading computer terminal. Electronic orders are matched by the dealer/specialist maintaining an orderly market. Upon matching an order, the dealer/specialist confirms the execution with the trading terminal and an automated central order book that stores transaction data.
The second system is made up of electronic exchanges which utilize electronic access to dealer posted market prices without a negotiating specialist or floor based exchange. The largest of these is NASDAQ. It is a totally computer-based market where each member dealer can make its own market in the stocks traded on the exchange through a computer network. Dealers trading a significant number of shares in a stock in their own name and profiting from the spread (i.e., the difference between the price which they purchase shares and the price for which they sell them) are called market makers. Market makers are most often, but not always, large financial institutions. There are usually a number of market makers in a stock, each bidding and offering stock for themselves or their customer.
Electronic exchanges may place, match, record and confirm transactions through their computer network. If a market order is placed through, for example NASDAQ without any restrictions, the NASDAQ computers make the actual match between an offer price and the bid price and thus will select the parties for the transaction. However a broker may indicate a preference to buy from or sell to a particular market maker.
Historically, market makers have solely determined the prices for securities on electronic exchanges such as NASDAQ. Non-members must place their orders and their customers' orders with a member dealer or ECN who receives a placement fee. Similar to other securities exchanges, electronic exchanges, such as NASDAQ, receive a fee for each such transaction.
The third trading system is Alternative Trading Systems (“ATS”), which provide ATS users and electronic exchange users and buy side traders, an electronic network by which they may directly interact with order flow and execute their orders independent of a market maker or specialist. By doing so, members avoid conventional fees while accessing liquidity anonymously. ATS's provide the user the opportunity to buy/sell stock without using an intermediary such as a broker, specialist, or market maker. Therefore, a buy side trader avoids the perils of displaying his/her order to the street—i.e. the specialist buying/selling stock ahead of his/her order for a penny above his/her limit, the broker shopping the order around, and inevitably the price running in an unfavorable direction because they have shown their hand. Since there is no “middle man”, the buy side trader trades directly with another trader who has an order on the opposite side. In addition to maintaining anonymity, the average trade size in the 6 major ATS's ranges from 5600 shares to 70,000 shares while the average trade size across all of the traditional exchanges has decreased significantly since the introduction of decimalization in 2001. In fact, as of Jul. 31, 2004, the average trade size on the NYSE is 410 shares (according to NYSE.com). Trade cost analysis has shown that it is advantageous for buy side traders to buy/sell large blocks of stock at one price thus avoiding market timing risk and opportunity cost.
The popularity of ATS's has increased as the need for anonymous access to liquidity has exploded and the need to achieve best execution at the lowest cost has increased sharply. ATS's provide electronic execution at a reduced commission rate. The industry standard commission rate to a traditional broker-dealer is between 0.04 to 0.05 cents per share while ATS's are paid 0.02 cents per share. While ECN's are a subset of ATS'S, this invention focuses exclusively on ATS's which are considered crossing networks. ECN's display limit orders if no internal match is found in the system. ATS's maintain their limit orders in a black box, thus maintaining the anonymity of their clients and their respective orders. Therefore, the limit book is never displayed to market participants. The first indication that an ATS had orders on its book occurs after a match is found. At this point, the match or trade would hit the third market tape and execution reports are simultaneously sent back to the participants.
There are currently numerous crossing networks, including, but not limited to: ITG POSIT; Liquidnet; Harborside; Instinet Cross; Pipeline, and NYFIX Millennium. Given the recent surge in electronic trading, demand for access to the individual ATS's and the resulting traffic has increased sharply.
Typically, each user of an ATS has an application on his/her desktop providing electronic access to the ATS's crossing network. Members send their bids and offers electronically and conduct transactions through the resulting network. Each ATS operates its crossing network differently while its computer network takes into consideration all order information supplied to it in real time by its members. While never displaying the orders or the members' identity, the crossing network records which computer and thus, which member posted each bid or offer. A match is found when the individual orders of a buyer and a seller in the crossing network have the same criteria (namely order size and price limit) and thus, match up for execution. The execution is printed on the tape and the participants are informed that their respective orders have been filled. All the while maintaining their anonymity as the buyer has no idea who the seller is and vice versa. The previously accepted bid and offers are no longer available for the upcoming match or cross until the buyer and seller reload.
The demand for these crossing networks provided by ATS's has grown significantly in recent years. When decimalization was introduced in 2001, the markets became extremely fragmented and the average trade size decreased substantially. While these changes have benefited retail investors, it has become increasingly difficult for buy side traders to find liquidity, or large blocks of stock in the inside quote. At the same time, buy side traders are measured by much higher standards than ever before. Pre trade analytics and trade cost analysis are the industry standard by which every trade is measured. The buy side trader must add value to the investment process and prove quantitatively that he/she is providing investors of their company's fund with best execution on each and every trade. With competition greater than ever before and a real need to find liquidity anonymously, the volume traded on ATS's has exploded, now totaling an average of 100 million shares a day across the six major ATS's.
The development of a multitude of ATS's and Algorithmic trading solutions has created a tremendous challenge for buy side traders. These systems have also contributed to major fragmentation of order-flow. This environment has made it increasingly difficult to capture the other side of a trade. Large institutional buyers/sellers of an illiquid stock find it harder to find that other side without adversely affecting the price. This is largely due to order flow being spread out among several alternative trading systems and the participants varying on each system. Furthermore, there are six major crossing networks or ATS's currently. If the asset management company for which buy side trader works only allows access to 2 or 3 ATS's on their desktop, he/she is missing out on significant volume (on the other ATS's) yet is judged against the composite volume for any stock in which he/she has an order. This is especially detrimental when trading small cap and/or illiquid stocks since one block of stock could potentially make up most of the daily volume.
While it is possible to subscribe to all 6 ATS's independently on a trader's desktop, it poses several problems: it gives the illusion that there are 6 individual orders in the marketplace causing adverse price fluctuations. Using 6 systems simultaneously is cumbersome, time intensive, requires extensive training, poses substantial risk to their firm in possible errors, and takes up substantial bandwidth thus slowing down the trading desk's order management system and other trading applications.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to overcome the above-noted deficiencies associated with existing protocols for using ATS's and to provide a unique strategy to minimize market impact while accessing liquidity found in ATS's. One stop shopping reduces costs in an increasingly competitive environment, sidesteps traditional marketplaces (i.e. NYSE and NASDAQ where market makers and specialists often take advantage of order flow information), time efficient, and avoids issue of having the buy side trader's OMS blotter swept. (Liquidnet sweeps the entire order blotter of their users. This is a significant deterrent to some buy side trading desks who don't currently subscribe to their network).
Unlike LAVA, an aggregating system which simply provides ACCESS to ECN's, exchanges and only a few ATS's, the present invention will intuitively streamline the data most relevant to achieving best execution of the trade. By providing access to all major ATS's, and through the use of its unique strategy and smart router, buy side traders exclusively will have the ability to interact with liquidity anonymously in real time.